Books Burn Badly

by Unknown

  ‘No, I’ve nothing to think about. And since you ask, I have an answer to that, which Donoso Cortés gave me in 1849.’

  Héctor knew what he meant, he was talking about a dictatorship. He jokingly pulled a pocket watch out of his waistcoat. ‘1849? I haven’t time to go so far back, Ricardo. I’ve a train ticket for tomorrow.’

  Samos looked at him in such a way it was clear he never wished to see him again. ‘That’s not an answer, it’s a frivolity.’ He then turned his back on him and strode off. He didn’t mind if Ríos thought he was running backwards.

  ‘Your priest, Mr Schmitt, is wrong when he affirms the history of the world begins with Cain. After that, everything in him is mistaken.’

  Ricardo Samos turned around for a moment. He felt invincible, stimulated by the idea of steely speech. He could speak boldly. Now Héctor Ríos would be the fool. ‘Auctoritas non veritas facit legem.’

  ‘Come back, Ricardo!’ shouted Ríos. ‘You’re a couple of centuries past 1849. Come back for the book, for civilisation!’

  He spoke theatrically, but was really sorry Samos had refused the book by Wells. He felt a pain in his stomach. Poor Wells. It’s lunchtime. I’ll look after you.

  ‘I still don’t think you should take it so seriously,’ insisted the censor. ‘You have to be above all this.’ It seemed like a good way of both calming and complimenting the judge. ‘We’re talking here about western novels, trashy literature. Even if the author meant it, who’s going to connect you with the Judge of Oklahoma? Who reads it, Ricardo? Ask at a bookstall and you’ll see. Sailors from the Great Sole, unemployed youths, prisoners . . .’

  He stopped because this seemed to worry the judge. He could see what he was thinking: Prisoners? So they read John Black Eye too?

  ‘You may think I’m exaggerating, Dez,’ said Samos after a pause, ‘but I have my reasons. I want a muzzle on that mouth.’

  He opened the drawer, put The Yoke Collector inside and locked it.

  ‘Bring me that Black Eye’s head on a platter!’

  The Supplier of Bibles

  19 August 1957

  Bibles were the library’s main attraction. Copies from different periods and in different languages. They filled the central shelves in the Italian room where Samos had his study. This collection of various editions of Scripture was the most obvious reason the judge’s office had been given the name the Crypt. The room, with its alcove, had the air of a reserved space. And time was disciplined and acted in accordance with this designation, placing religious objects, hunting trophies, photographs and prints in silver frames in gaps between books or on the mantelpiece. As for the library itself, it contained the collection of Bibles, which was always growing, and books the judge would consult in matters of law, together with reference works concerning history and thought. The alcove was the home of classical literature and, to use the judge’s expression, ‘a resting-place for all sorts of flotsam’ he’d picked up along the way in his foremost bibliographical search for copies of the Old and New Testaments. The alcove was altered slightly when it was decided Gabriel might use it, not that he was forced to do so, rather he was the one who took it over as a study, to the great surprise of his parents, especially Chelo, his mother. ‘It’s a good place for bats,’ she said to Gabriel. This is partly why he liked it. Because it was dark and secret, like a lair, in such a luminous house, a kind of bell-jar facing the bay. On the other side of the street, there were no houses. On the other side was the sea. Boats. The docks. Into the recess, into his cave, Gabriel carried his cabinet of curiosities.

  He wasn’t very outgoing. He was almost always silent, bad-tempered, thought Gabriel, but then he decided it was something permanent, nothing to do with his mood, since when he laughed he looked bad-tempered as well. His body seethed slowly. It was one of those large bodies which want to offload things, starting with his suit. Perhaps it was because of his physique, thought Gabriel, that he couldn’t help being brusque in his movements and speech. He was brusque when he expressed his opinion in conversations in the Crypt, those meetings that were held in the judge’s office almost every Thursday evening. He had a tendency to exclaim and come out with short, cutting sentences. His manner of speaking caught Gabriel’s attention at a time he was having his own struggle with language. Whenever he greeted Chelo, he tried to change attitude completely. He was brusque in this too. He did so with such exaggerated politeness his body seemed on the verge of violence.

  Such was Ren. Inspector Ren.

  They were utterly different. But Gabriel soon realised there was a strong link between Ren and the judge. He was one of his suppliers of Bibles. Of old books. Whenever he came to make a delivery, they met alone.

  One afternoon, inside the alcove, Gabriel was privileged enough to witness an act of transfer performed by Ren and the judge with certain ceremony. Ren, who was usually very abrupt, on this occasion moved in a measured way, very cautiously. He placed a large leather and suede travelling bag on the desk and unfastened the zip in slow motion. He then very carefully pulled out six volumes. The judge leafed through them with reverence. His hands verified. And took possession.

  ‘A jewel, your honour. Look at the prints.’

  ‘Gabriel, come here! La Sainte Bible published by the Garnier brothers, Paris, 1867. Observe the quality of the illustrations, the perfection that came off steel plates.’

  Gabriel, however, really was observing the illustrations, what was in them. All the prints showed women, female Biblical figures. There was the Queen of Sheba with her bowl of pearls. Rahab, waiting at the window. The Pharaoh’s daughter. Judith with her curved sword, next to the bed where Holofernes lies. Sarah, Tobias’ wife, with gaudy earrings and a bracelet. Eve. He’d never seen such a beautiful Eve. It was in fact the first time he’d wondered what she looked like.

  ‘You like it, right? One day, I’ll tell you about all the Bibles in here. It’s still too soon, but you’ll have to add to this treasure in the future.’

  Gabriel was taken with the figures. This would be his favourite Bible for a long time. He’d love them all. Even Judith with her curved sword. The Garnier brothers’ Sainte Bible was one of his best erotic books, together with those he found in the section of charred remains, such as Le Nu de Rabelais. Opening each volume was like opening one of the six gates in a feminine city.

  But today the judge would only allow him to touch. He was the one who opened the gates.

  ‘Chelo will be fascinated,’ he said.

  She’d be late today. Gabriel was already in bed. He’d like to have seen her fingers on this new Bible’s illustrations. For him, they were his mother’s most peculiar feature. The shape of her hands, the length of her fingers. He thought, even though he was a man, his would never reach that size. Her toes were in proportion. She looked after and painted the nails of both her hands and her feet. The latter, visible when she wore sandals or could step on the grass or sand, distinguished her from other women. At home, she went barefoot whenever she was painting, which was most of the time. Occasionally she’d receive a call from Fine Arts to take some special visitors on a tour. She spoke French well and got by in English. But most of all she could read the book of the city. She understood its art, architecture and history. Today she was with two French women writing their doctoral theses on Emilia Pardo Bazán. They were also going to visit one of Rosalía de Castro’s daughters, her only surviving descendant, named Gala. Rosalía had been born of unknown parents, so it said on her baptism certificate, though it was well known her father was a priest. She married the librarian and historian Manuel Murguía and they had five children. Gala, who is eighty-six, explains she’s not only the last surviving daughter, but the end of the line. She suddenly falls quiet. The expression on her face is of horror more than pain. Chelo had visited her before, acting as ambassador, but had never seen her like this. Josette and Nelly, the two French women, exchange anxious glances. Their courtesy call is turning into something else. Gala then tells them somet
hing she claims never to have told before. Her twin brother, Ovidio Murguía, a painter, had a sweetheart in Madrid, a young woman by the name of Visitación Oliva. Ovidio became ill with tuberculosis, the biggest killer of youth in those days, and returned to Coruña to recover. In fact, he came to die. But what Gala is telling them is that she burnt the love letters that arrived from Madrid for her sick brother. She burnt them one by one. Including the letter with the happy news that Visitación Oliva was with child. This gesture of dropping the letter into the fire somehow put an end to their line. Ovidio Murguía died, thinking he’d been totally forgotten. Why? Why did she do this? Why is she telling them now? This is what their looks say, but no one asks questions. No one says anything. Gala murmurs, ‘I’m sorry for what happened.’ In the night, in the brazier, in a corner of the room, Chelo watches words burning.

  Back home, Chelo finds her husband ecstatic. He has a new Bible, an extraordinary Parisian edition illustrated by European print masters of the nineteenth century. Chelo says she’s not in the mood. It was a tiring day. Everything’s fine, it’s just she’s exhausted. Even so, she’ll take a look. ‘The illustrations are of the most remarkable women in the Bible,’ says the judge. He knew she’d be interested. She sits down. Is captivated. Then says she’s changed her mind. She’s awake now. This is what happens after a tiring day. She’s going to paint. ‘Excuse me. I’m going to paint. Paint the night,’ she says, pointing to the picture of a female worker resting her oil lamp on a colleague’s head as a joke.

  That afternoon, before Ren left, they talked about anonymous letters. The judge showed him an envelope with no return address and the sheet that came inside. A typed text. A carbon copy.

  ‘Same as always,’ said the judge. ‘Same poem. Third canto of The Divine Sketch by Manuel Curros Enríquez. Same date at the bottom. 19th of August 1936.’

  With rude gnashing of teeth . . .

  Rather than reading, Ren seemed to be searching for fingerprints on the sheet.

  He offered me some and said,

  ‘It’s not exactly the best,

  but you’re welcome.’ ‘What is it?’

  ‘A morsel of human flesh.’

  ‘Can’t we find the typewriter and typist?’ asked the judge, giving Ren a deliberate look.

  ‘I also got a copy,’ said Ren. ‘Dez as well.’ He moved his moustache uneasily, as if searching somewhere outside the Crypt. ‘Who can the bastard be? It’s the same typewriter as every year. I checked it against clandestine pamphlets, leaflets, writing samples from prisoners, people under surveillance, but found nothing out of the ordinary. What the hell happened that day, Samos? I know something must have happened. Something almost always did. But what was so special this nutter can’t keep quiet about it? I don’t remember.’

  The judge looked at him and was silent. There’d been several things. He didn’t remember either, but his memory did. The advantages and disadvantages of having such a good memory. Memory sometimes does its own thing, thought the judge. By the time you realise, without wanting to, you’ve a book in your hands from the alcove, with burnt edges. He could have gone in search of others, other bibliographical jewels that were in there, English editions with gilt edges and watercolours, wonderful editions. But no, by the time he realised, what the memory of his hands had done was pull out the little book with burnt edges and the symbol of a scallop shell in the centre, the little book with the Six Galician Poems. The way things happened, both poet and publisher had to go and die on that day, 19 August, the day they burnt books. He had to study this law that wasn’t in the code. The law of chance. Change, chance, words are so mixed up. Which is why it was important to be precise. Did they come from the same family of words? He’d have to check that.

  ‘Something must have happened.’ Inspector Ren re-examined the letter. With rude gnashing of teeth. He dropped it casually on the desk. Well, he was convinced it had been typed on an Underwood Universal. But there were lots of those. ‘What we need is a register of every typewriter there is. The day I find that Underwood Universal, I’ll show him rude gnashing of teeth.’

  The judge smiled. He knew about Ren’s obsession for typewriters. Ren had told him he had a collection at home, about twenty of them, including some that had been confiscated when war broke out. He also had a few from secret resistance groups. Sometimes, after a day’s work, he’d sit down and type. ‘Nothing that makes any sense. I just bash the keys.’ Biff, bang, wallop. It made him feel good, hitting those machines.

  ‘All this in confidence, right, your honour? Strictly between ourselves.’

  ‘One day, you’ll have to invite me to your sanctuary, Ren.’

  One day. One day he’d have to extend an invitation. ‘It’s all a mess. You can imagine what it’s like living on your own.’

  ‘You know what the Portuguese say? “Desire of solitude leads to great virtue or wickedness.”’

  ‘All my vice is taken up with eating.’

  Samos was clearly talking through one side of his mouth, but thinking something different. He’d grabbed the mallet. And was thumping the palm of his hand.

  ‘Thanks for the Bible, Ren. A good price too.’

  Yeah. Thumping away at the palm of his hand.

  He asked, ‘Any other news?’

  Beating the palm of his hand. Looking elsewhere. At the mystery of the leather bag.

  ‘I’d tell you, Samos, if there were.’

  ‘Nothing about the valiente of Finisterra?’

  ‘Nothing, your honour. I’ve done all I could. Been through all the lists. The Falange. The knights militia. Those who transferred Casares Quiroga’s library. Those posted to his house. Those at the docks and in María Pita. The squad of workmen who disposed of the remains. I’ve been through it all. Conducted searches. Nothing. Better forget that book, your honour. I’m after another, by that Irishman, you said belonged to Huici. I don’t think it’s far off. That’s what my nose tells me. When you’re least expecting something is when it knocks at the door. That’s the way of old things.’

  I Was Forsook

  He saw Hercules go by, that crazy photographer with the horse. Terranova’s friend. He couldn’t help it. His orbital look upset things. Not for him, but for his memory. Blasted memory, always up to no good. Going off like that without his permission. Now following the photographer and his horse. He knew their story. The horse was from Cuba, Vidal had brought it with his son’s photographic equipment. But Leica had kept it in his studio. He wanted to be an artist. Not lead a horse about. So he rented it to Hercules, or lent it, whatever the arrangement was, you never know, they belonged to the same group, did him a favour, lent him the horse and instant camera. The horse’s eyes were well done. The point is horse and photographer made him nervous. It was too much. Why hadn’t he gone as well, that colossus, cowboy, hick, subnormal, champ, son of a whore, why hadn’t he left instead of wandering around the city like a ghost complete with wooden quadruped?

  Tomás Dez was so distracted, distracted and disturbed, as if he’d heard ‘Chessman’ carried on the breeze, was so preoccupied he didn’t notice his secretary’s warning signs when he reached the censor’s office. So this stranger coming up to him, dressed like a sailor from a spectral boat, caught him by surprise.

  ‘Are you the censor?’

  Censor? It was true. He was one of the censors. He gave him a supercilious look. ‘I’m very busy.’ And carried straight on to the door of his office.

  ‘I was forsook!’

  He turned around as if he’d heard a strange, inescapable code.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for months for a reply. My book. A book of poems. Called I Was Forsook.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘The Most Mysterious of the Mysterious.’

  Interesting. I was forsook? I was forsook? Part of his memory identified the echo.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Dez. ‘I’ve some matters to attend to and then I’ll come back to you.’
>
  He was feeling generous. Time to redeem yourself, Dez, said his ironic side. Possibly the taste on his palate after chewing ‘Chessman’, the condemned man’s song. Why be despotic with this old sailor in a worn overcoat, invoking the Most Mysterious? He shut the door and rummaged through the pile of originals waiting for a report. It had been some time since he’d read or processed anything. His problem with dermatitis was getting worse. Other times, it cleared up completely. Like now.

  There it was: I Was Forsook. Signed: Aurelio Anceis.

  He opened the book. Was hit by the unforeseeable. By way of a preface, two lines from a medieval poem by Pero Guterres:

  They all say God never sinned,

  but mortally I see him sin.

  What was this? He turned the page. Read:

  CRUMBS

  Word-crumbs

  rounded and

  polished

  by the fingers of silence,

  with the inflamed accuracy of

  beads in a rosary

  on the star-map of

  an oilskin tablecloth.

  Crumbs like these